Nowadays, creating a blog or web with WordPress is really simple and almost anyone can do it.
Hire a cheap hosting, download any theme, leas to install plugins to add any detail and in just a few hours, you’ll be up and running your brand new website.
The problem comes, when the time passes, and you see that you hardly receive visits.
This may be due to several problems, for example that you must make some improvements in SEO or web positioning, but almost certainly, another thing you must improve to get your website off the ground, is the loading speed.
More and more, is a determining factor not only in the visibility but also in the usability of your website so in this article we will see 10 tips to speed up WordPress:
Choose a good web hosting
It is normal that when we start a project, we look for the cheapest hosting we can pay, but in the long run, it is undoubtedly worth investing a little more money in this section and hire a quality hosting that gives you guarantees not only in speed but also in security and support.
More and more companies offer hosting packages optimized for this CMS, which for a few euros / dollars per month, leave you the server with everything ready to start your web.
This is especially useful, especially if you do not know how to install WordPress automatically step by step with a couple of clicks, backup automatically and many other things.
To start a web project, without getting too technical, we should take into account two important aspects:
a – The disk space we will need + the RAM bandwidth.
b – Hosting specially prepared for WordPress and configured for it.
Personally, I have tried both Site Ground and WebCompany and both are fantastic options, preferring the first in case of having to choose.
Recommended article: How to Make a Web Page with WordPress. Definitive Guide on how to connect your domain and Site Ground hosting.
Use a lightweight WordPress theme
Without a doubt, when we start to create a web page or blog, what most attracts our attention and what we dedicate the most time to is choosing and modifying the WordPress template or theme that we are going to use.
The design is undoubtedly something important, as it has a fundamental impact on the user experience, but unfortunately, as a general rule, we tend to rely solely on the visual aspect and in any case, that has the functionality we seek for our project when choosing the template.
There are a lot of free WordPress themes and many of them quite optimized.
However, we do not stop putting our hand to adapt them to our taste using dozens of plugins, builders or snippets of code that we find anywhere.
The most recommendable thing is to use a simple theme of minimalist design, which will help our content and products to stand out, also helping to improve the speed of our website.
Among the best free options, are the themes OceanWP and Astra, two freemium options that have a free basic version and the ability to expand functionality with the premium or paid version.
If you want something more advanced, you have at your disposal the Genesis framework, known for its minimalism, or of course, hire a professional.
Reduce the size of the images
Images are a fundamental part of any web project. Right now it’s almost impossible to visit a successful site that doesn’t have images.
It is clear that adding images is essential, but for this reason, it is also essential to reduce the size (in pixels) and weight (in bytes) of the same to one that is suitable for the user and not to slow down our server and thus accelerate WordPress.
Personally, I prefer to create images at the exact size for my websites and reduce their size with the different online tools available, but if you prefer, you should know that you have at your disposal several plugins to optimize WordPress images ready for download in the official repository.
For example, the EWWW Image Optimizer Plugin is one of the most used for this task.
Remove or deactivate unused Plugins
Especially in the beginning, when we were still beginners, we were fascinated by the plugins and loaded the site with lots of them.
Ideally, from time to time, let’s assess whether all plugins are really essential or we can uninstall some, removing that functionality or replace it with a more optimized.
Of course, it is also important that you deactivate all the plugins that you only use from time to time, such as sending newsletters, database cleaning, etc.
Compress the CSS and JS files
The compression of CSS and JS files is of vital importance, as it can greatly improve the loading speed of the site in browsers as we are told by most tools to check the speed of WordPress such as Google Page Speed Insights.
The ideal is to reduce it manually, accessing the code via FTP and uploading a reduced and compressed version of our files, however, once again, we have a plugin available to facilitate the task in case you do not have the time or technical knowledge necessary.
In this case, I refer to the Autoptimize plugin, capable of compressing CSS, JS and HTML files.
Use a cache plugin to speed up WordPress
One of the most used ways to lighten the load of our web to the server, is to take advantage of the caching of our browser.
Once again, you have several plugins available, WP Rocket if you do not mind spending some money, or if you prefer a free option, I recommend WP Super Cache, created by Automattic (the company of the creator of WordPress) that already has more than 2 million active installations today.
Enable GZIP compression
Another way we can use to increase the speed of WordPress is to implement GZIP compression on our website, decompressing the files in the user’s browser each time they visit our website.
On this occasion, my recommendation is that you implement this solution directly with code as it is very easy and fast.
Just add the following code in the .htaccess file of your website:
<IfModule mod_deflate.c> <IfModule mod_headers.c> Header append Vary User-Agent env=!dont-vary </IfModule> AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/x-component AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/javascript AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/x-js AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/richtext AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/svg+xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xsd AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xsl AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/bmp AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/java AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/msword AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/vnd.ms-fontobject AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-msdownload AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/x-icon AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/json AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/vnd.ms-access AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/vnd.ms-project AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-otf AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/vnd.ms-opentype AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.database AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.chart AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.formula AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.graphics AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.presentation AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.spreadsheet AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE audio/ogg AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/pdf AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/vnd.ms-powerpoint AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-shockwave-flash AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/tiff AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-ttf AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/vnd.ms-opentype AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE audio/wav AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/vnd.ms-write AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/font-woff AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/font-woff2 AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/vnd.ms-excel <IfModule mod_mime.c> # DEFLATE by extension AddOutputFilter DEFLATE js css htm html xml </IfModule> </IfModule>
Clean the database
Cleaning the WordPress database from time to time is also very important to prevent it from weighing more than necessary.
After each new article, comment or action, revisions, drafts and transitory options are automatically saved, which are not necessary, but which increase the size of our database and therefore slowing down the speed of our WordPress.
To solve it, I recommend you the WP-Optimize plugin, that as we commented before, it is not necessary that you have activated at all times but once used, you can deactivate it until the next time.
Deactivate Pingbacks and Trackbacks
Nowadays the disadvantages of Pinbacks and Trackbacks are far superior to their benefits so it is ideal to deactivate them.
At the time, served to warn of incoming links that are having entries. However, there are third party services where you can consult this and more, without paying a fee and you also save that third parties exploit this for their benefit.
To deactivate Pingback and Trackbacks, you must go to the WordPress administration desktop and in the Settings section, click on Comments.
Once there, uncheck the option “Allow link notifications from other sites (pingbacks and trackbacks)”.
Reduce third party scripts and functionality to a minimum
Finally, as a last tip to optimize speed and speed up WordPress, I recommend that you avoid filling your website with third party code that can overload and slow down your hosting with countless server calls or countless redirects.
Some of these services are AdSense ads, comment management system like Disqus, social network buttons and similar functionalities.
Of course, you must add the services that work best for your website or help you monetize it, but you must do it with your head and avoid overloading your server unnecessarily.
For example, in addition to choosing the lighter option of the plugin or code for social networks, the ideal is that you do not add the option to share in less important social networks or that you do not use.
Similarly, if your website barely receives any comments, you should consider replacing Disqus with the native WordPress commenting system, thus helping you to speed up your website.
Conclusion
Not only does a website live from content, because if no one reads it, what’s the point?
For our website to have a good user experience requires constant maintenance and comply with the rules of optimization that we have seen to get to improve the speed of WordPress.
I would like to say goodbye, but I would like to thank you again for the opportunity to contribute my little grain of sand to this mythical blog that contributes so much to the WordPress community.
Of course, I am at your disposal on social networks and in the comment area to answer any questions about the article.